Quai Anatole France and Madame Cockman

Quai Anatole France

On the Move Again...

When our lease ran out on our apartment on Rue Du Bac in the 5th Arrondismont, we had to move once again and this time it was to an apartment on the famous Quai Anatole France, located in the 7th Arrondismont on the Rive Guache (left bank).  Our new apartment was located close to the famous Latin Quarter. This would be our fifth and final move during our mission in Paris.

Hollywood Comes to Paris...

Interesting enough, our newly selected apartment was the former home of Albert Brocolli, the movie Producer of the James Bond 007 movie empire.  He was living in the apartment while filming the latest Bond thriller, Moonraker that was released in early 1979. 

The American Embassy told us many outlandish stories of parties that were held in Quai Anatole.  The story I liked best was, when the filming came to an end, Brocolli held a cast party in the apartment.  During the party things got out of hand when the famous Richard Kyle, otherwise known as "JAWS" arrived.  Jaws was 7'2, 350 lbs and was a strong man in his own right.  He was one of those actors who always portrayed the ugly bad guy.  Jaws, was a big hit, he would pick up one of the actresses and hold her out of the 3rd story living room window by her ankle, while she screamed and everyone cheered him on.  Then he would grab a male actor by their ankles and dangle them out the window too.  Fortunately, there were no mishaps just lots of screaming and laughter.  

Meeting Bond, James Bond...

I have to mention this tidbit here because it fits in with the "James Bond" storyline.  When we arrived in our new apartment on Quai Anatole, to my dismay, while unpacking, I realized that the movers forgot my classical guitar back at the old apartment at Rue Du Bac.  Because my guitar was everything to me, I told my parents what had happened and I went back to retrieve it. 

When I arrived back at Rue Du Bac I knocked on the door.  After several knocks and no answer I was getting ready to leave when suddenly the door opened.  The man standing at the door was none other than the man himself, Bond, James Bond...Sir Roger Moore.

 

I introduced myself and explained why I was there.  He laughed and politely allowed me to enter his new apartment.  We briefly talked about the historical design and history of the apartment and he was interested to find out that an American Ambassador was living in the same apartment there prior to his move-in. 

Sir Moore escorted me to my old room.  My guitar was in the corner of the room, next to my old bed right where I had left it.  I put it in it's case and told Sir Moore that my life was now complete.  He laughed and said, "cheers lad, I'm glad you got your prize possession". He asked me if I was enjoying my stay in Paris and wished me good luck.  As I walked back to the front door, I thanked him and told him that I was a big fan of his and that I was looking forward to seeing his next action thriller at the movies.  

We shook hands and I departed with a smile on my face.   As it turned out, Brocolli originally wanted to rent the apartment at Rue du Bac while filming but because we were occupying it, he moved into the Quai Anatole France apartment.  When he learned that we were moving out, he recommended the apartment to Sir Roger Moore who was planning to rest and relax in Paris for a few months after filming. Later that year, Moonranker came to the theater and I was there, front and center row, after all, me and Sir Roger Moore now shared a BOND.

Our New Surroundings...

Our apartment on Quai Anatole France was named after the 19th century French Poet, journalist, and novelist, Anatole France and was located along the Seine River.  

Down the street and in eyesight was the famous Pont Alexander III bridge that separates the right Bank from the left bank.  Our apartment was one block from the French National Assembly and one block from the Musee d'Orsay. Across the Seine River from our place was the famous Place de la Concorde with its famous Neptune water fountain, the Egyptian Oblisk, the U.S. American Embassy, the Elysee (French President's Residence), and the Hotel Carillion. Directly across the street from Place de la Concorde is the beautiful gardens (Jardin Tullieries), which leads to the Musee du Louvre.  

Most intriguing to a teenager as myself was the famous Piscine Deligny.  The Piscine (pool) was an outdoor floating barge that contained a swimming pool built in 1796 on the Seine River. It had a lower deck and a notable upper deck where all the topless sun bathers gathered. We have a lot of funny stories revolving around the famous pool, especially when American guests visited us and had the pleasure of viewing sunbathers close up with our readily handy binoculars located on our window sill.  As I learned later, in 1993 the Piscine Deligny mysteriously sank to the bottom on the Seine.  

The Apartment

The apartment spanned the entire 3rd floor of the building.  From the street, you entered a gate that lead into a small courtyard.  You entered the building, through a small foyer which led to an elevator and a staircase.  This was not a modern elevator but a narrow box surrounded by an ornate iron cage that would slowly go up or down.  When you pushed the button, all kind of strange loud noises came from compressors, gears, pulleys, and cables, and when it came to a stop it jerked  with a loud clunking noise.  On one occasion, me and some friends visiting from the US decided we would jump up while the elevator started to descend.  Bad idea...when the three of us landed on the floor of the elevator, the small cage made the loudest clunk and it came to an abrupt stop.  We pushed buttons to no avail and realized we were stuck in between floors and unable to get out. We yelled and screamed for help. Finally after a long and terrifying time, someone came to our rescue and called the fire department.  By the time they arrived and rescued us, hours had gone by and we vowed never to try that stunt again.

Our apartment on Quai Anatole was a fantastic hub when visitors came to stay with us. It had a massive living room with elegant sofas, wing back chairs and most notable, a grand piano situated by the large windows that spanned from one end of the room to other end that presented the most amazing scenic view of the heart of Paris. But we mainly lounged in a smaller den which was adjacent to the living room.  It was more cozy and comfortable with sofas, captain chairs, a large TV and the best view of all, overlooking Piscine Deligny. 

The Notorious Madame Cockman

Aside from the history and location of our apartment, the real story here is that of the Landlord.  When we first arrived to sign the lease, we were greeted by an uppity proper English woman who called herself  Madame Cockman.  According to her, she was graciously leasing us the apartment while her wealthy husband was away on business in South America she was going to find a well-suited tenant and then rendezvous with him.

After several months had gone by, the American Embassy contacted my father and questioned him regarding numerous and very expensive international telephone calls to South America.  Evidently, these calls were originating from our apartment on our telephone line.  This was a mystery and surprise to my father, he had no idea what was happening but assured the Embassy that he would get to the bottom of it.  

One morning my father and I were in the kitchen and our chef entered through a backdoor that we didn't know existed.  Dumbfounded, we asked her how she knew about the backdoor and she explained that there is a common service entrance backdoor that is connected to all of the apartments in the building.  It is the official servants entrance, exclusively to be used by the chefs, maids and butlers who work for the residents of the building.   

In addition, there were living quarters located upstairs in the building's attic where some of the servants lived.  These are called "Chambres de Bonne" or "maids rooms", she explained. 

One Sunday morning, when it was our chef's day off, we were in the kitchen making our own breakfast.  My father began telling my mother about the servant's entrance and the chambres de bonne.  Our intrigue lead to an adventure. My father and I set off to explore the hidden passage ways of our apartment building.  Behind the kitchen entrance was a small door that led to an outside entrance that was connected to a dark musty narrow spiral stairwell .  

At the top of the stairwell we were basically in the attic of the building. 

We were standing in a hallway that was dimly lit by a few scattered skylight windows. There was a long hallway with doors on each side.  All of the doors were closed but we could hear classical music coming from the end of the hallway.  As we slowly proceeded to walk down the hallway we cautiously followed the sound of the music. At the end of the hallway there appeared to be a light coming out of one of the rooms. As we quietly approached the room the music got louder. The door was slightly ajar and we noticed it was different from all the others, it was painted blue with a tall topiary plant on each side. There was a bright velvet red carpet at the doorstep, a beautiful antique exterior lamp fixture hanging on the wall above a shiny gold engraved nameplate that read, "Madame Cockman".

We cautiously looked through the small opening of the door.  The small room that was lit by one small window.  Under the window was a lady sitting in a rocking chair with her back towards us.  It looked like she was reading a book or maybe asleep.  She was finely dressed and humming to the music.  The room was finely decorated, it looked like a queens bedroom that you would see in a royal chateau.

My father and I looked at each other in dismay,  at the same time we both whispered, "Madame Cockman". That was our landlord and she is supposed to be someplace in South America with her wealthy husband but evidently, she was living here in one of the Chambres de Bonne.  We were going to knock on the door but hesitated, my Father, the diplomat that he was, didn't want to embarrass her so we quietly left without her noticing our presence.

When we got back to our apartment, we told the family the whole story. We pondered over our discovery of Madame Cockman for several days. Several days later, my father had a revelation, he remembered the mystery of the long distance telephone calls to South America.  We put two and two together and realized that the calls were somehow being initiated by Madam Cockman, but how?  My father reported the incident to the U.S. Embassy and they decided to investigate.

Several weeks later the verdict came in.  Evidently, Madame Cockman still had a key to our kitchen backdoor.  When no one was home, she would let herself in and use our telephone to call her husband in South America.  I guess she assumed that no one would ever question the American Ambassador's phone bill. Several days later, Madame Cockman showed up at our front door and gave a lengthy "lame" excuse for her actions to my parents.  My parents didn't really care about the phone bill because their concern was the fact that she was entering our home while we were away. My parents demanded the key but she refused based on the fact that she was the rightful owner but agreed not to enter without prior notification and supervision.  The case of the long distance phone bill was solved and Madame Cockman was exposed.

I honestly don't remember a lot about the apartment.  Since we were already in our third year in Paris, we had all acclimated to our surroundings in our own ways.  I was very involved in school sports so I was always at practice after school or traveling to compete someplace in Europe.  I was also very interested in photography throughout or time in Paris.  Religiously, every weekend my best friend Adrian and I would explore someplace in Paris and photograph everything and anything.  I specialized in only black and white film and I had an extensive collection of negatives that sadly got lost somewhere in the shuffle between Paris and the other places I moved to throughout the years.   During this time, my sisters were both attending the American College of Paris (which now is the American University of Paris).  They were actively busy with friends, traveling on a ski trip in the Italian Alps, sunbathing on a beach in Spain or entertaining the troops at the U.S. Marine Base.  My parents continued to entertain UNESCO's diplomatic core on a weekly basis or were busy hosting out of town guests. 

Our final days in Paris came to an abrupt end during spring break of April 1979.  We were given less than a week to say our final goodbyes to friends before we departed.  During that time, we had several guests visiting us, my sister Carmen and two family friends. One night we went bar hopping down the Champs Elysee. My goal was to drink one beer from every cafe, I can't say that I really remember all the details of that night but I do remember being hoisted up on my friends shoulders and tearing down the "Quai Anatole France" wooden street sign off the side of the building.  Needless to say, 46 years later, I still cherish my souvenir and it is a constant reminder of my fondest days living in Paris, France.

Discovering an Underground German Nazi Hideout

While I attended the American School of Paris I had an American friend who's Father worked for the American Embassy and had been stationed in Paris for many years.  Jacques Guidry was his name, and he lived in the outskirts of Paris in the city of St. Cloud.

One day Jacques told me and my other friends that near his house there was a old tree in an empty field and next to the tree was a deep hole.  We asked him how deep was the hole and he said very deep, so deep that when he looked in there with a flashlight, he couldn't see the bottom.  All of us were intrigued by what could be down there.  Some of us guessed that it was an old water bed, others guessed it was a bat cave.  The curiosity was killing us so we decided we would meet up on a weekend, come prepared with rope and flashlights and venture down into the mysterious hole.

I told my Father about the hole next to the tree and he too became interested and I convinced him to come along with us, it didn't take a lot to convince him so he agreed.  On a Saturday morning we drove out to an undisclosed location and met my friend Jacques. He and a couple of the other guys were already waiting and we were all eager to start our spelunking adventure.

My Father recommend that we tie one end of the longest rope around the base of the tree and the other end around our waist and slowly drop into the hole.  Jacques was the smallest person, so we volunteered him.  Equipped with a flashlight, we slowly lowered him down into the hole, he used a steep dirt wall to climb down and without a rope it would be impossible.  Throughout his descent, we constantly asked him if he was okay.  When he finally touched the bottom he yelled up to us to send the next person down.  Each person followed Jacques' footstep until the last one was down.

When we arrived at the bottom we were flabbergasted.  We had entered a huge cavern.  At the bottom there was very fine smooth dirt and no rocks.  As we looked up, we estimated we were approximately 40-50 feet below the surface and without the flashlights it was pitch black except for the little light coming in from the hole at the top.  As we grouped together at the bottom, we decided to take all precautions, since it was so dark, we would all stick together, and we would place a metal stake where we stood and tie a string to it.  As we explored the cave, we would unravel the string, always knowing where we started.

The cave was pitch black, every time we turned off the flashlight, we couldn't even see our hands in front of our face. There were several large tunnels both wide and tall that went in different directions, we choose to follow one tunnel.  As we walked through the tunnel we noticed something very strange, there were wires that ran along the top of the walls. My Father was in the Army Corps of Engineers and he confirmed that the wires were telephone lines.  Following the tunnel deeper in, we came to a large cave opening.  Shinning our flashlights into the opening we discovered a large room with about 10 bunk beds along the walls.  The bunk beds were made of metal but oddly they were not rusted some of them still had a mattress but no bed coverings.  In between the bunk beds there were large metal boxes separating the next set of bunks.  We assumed the boxes contained the answers to the mystery, we all got excited and held our breath as we slowly opened the first box. To our disappointment, when we lifted the lid of the box, it was empty, we all let out a deep sigh of disappointment.  Box after box was empty and this made it more mysterious and peeked our curiosity even more.  Why were there bunk beds down here, who was living down here and where did they they go? These were the questions we kept asking ourselves as we walked further down the dark tunnel passage.

Back in the main tunnel we came across another smaller cave.  As we all directed our flashlights on the room it appeared to be set up as an office.  Against the wall, was a old metal desk with a chair, empty file cabinets and several old chairs scattered throughout the room.  Strangely, there were no markings on anything we found so the mystery of the Who, What and Why was still mounting?

As we proceeded deeper into the tunnel corridor, we came to another cave.  This cave was like the first one, bunk beds and metal storage trunks in between the rows of bunks.  Again we cautiously opened a trunk and to our surprise and excitement, this one contained items in it.  

The contents appeared to be military stuff.  We pulled out a helmet and to our amazement, there was a red, white and black German Nazi Swastika emblem.  There was a belt, parts of a military uniform and a pair of dusty boots.  A few other trunks contained items too.  Now the mystery was solved, this was somekind of underground German Nazi military command post. 

All of us were very excited with our new discovery.  We figured that no one had discovered or been down here since WWII, or if someone had already discovered it, why did they leave such valuable items behind?

Further down the tunnel we came to another opening, all at once we shinned our flashlights into the cave to see what we would find and to our surprise there were several old vehicles.  The vehicles were 1930's vintage convertible Mercedes Benz's.  They were faded, dusty and a little rusty but otherwise seemed to be in good working condition.  There was a large Nazi Swastika emblem on the passenger and driver side doors.  We jumped in the cars and pretended that we were driving them.  The question remained, how did these vehicles get down into these tunnels and why?

We proceeded down the tunnel but to our surprise we came to a complete stop.  The tunnel ended to what a appeared to be a solid hand-made brick wall.  

After much speculation we determined that at one time, there was an opening in the tunnel but it had been filled in with bricks to seal off the opening but who would have done this, the Germans or the French?

Coincidentally, we were out of string and we were at a dead end.  Our excitement level was extremely high and we decided to turn around and follow our string back to the beginning.  On our way back, we all expressed our own theories of our new discovery and we kept asking ourselves if we were the first people to discovery this hideout since WWII.  The mystery continued and we wanted answers. We interrogated my Father with question after question but he too, was at a loss.

We arrived back to our original starting point and now we had to decide who was going up first.  We decided that little Jacques should go first again so that he could figure the best way for us to exit.  He grabbed the rope and using the wall he climbed the steep incline back up to the hole and sunlight.  My Father followed him, so that he could help assist us when we got to the top.  When the last one of us was brought out of the hole we dusted ourselves off and each and everyone of us had the biggest smile on our face.  As far as we were concerned we just discovered a major historical jackpot.

Before we departed, one big question still remained, how did those vehicles get inside the cave?  My Father decided we would get in the car and drive around to see what the surrounding area looked like.  What we discovered was that the cave was built next to a river bed so we drove to the other side of the river to see what the area looked like from the other side.  As we approached the area that we determined was where the underground tunnels were located, we noticed that 30 feet up the cliff side was a faded brick arch opening built into the side of the cliff. Collectively, we concluded that at one time in history, there must have been a flowing river running through what was now an dry empty river bed.  The Germans must have come by boat, blasted a hole in the cliffs, made tunnels and established a wartime command post. The cars and troops must have come by boat, unloaded into the tunnel opening and was used as a hideout from the French and Allied Forces.  We had it all figured out and now we were ready to go home and share the news.

The next school day, we decided we were going to share our discovery with our gym teacher because he was always sharing history stories to our class and we thought he was a cool guy.  We figured he could arrange for us to go back and collect some the relic military items that we left behind.  After we briefed him and gave him the location he was super excited and said he was going to schedule a trip out there with us and bring back the goods.  We were all proud of ourselves and were excited to show him our discovery.

A couple of weeks had passed and we were still anxious about our trip to the underground hideout mainly because there were other tunnels that we didn't explore and who knows what other hidden treasures were down there.

Weeks later, on a Saturday morning, I got a call from one of the friends and he said read today's newspaper, I found the newspaper and opened it to the local section and to my amazement, there was a large article about a hidden WWII German Nazi hideout that was discovered by none other than our gym teacher.  What a Rat Fink!  There he was, in front of the tree with a big smile on his face. We couldn't wait to confront him on Monday morning.

On Monday morning, we all met in front of the gym, took a deep breath and all together we entered the gym. When he saw us, he was all smiles and gloating.  I think he thought we were going to congratulate him or something, instead we came face-to-face and asked him why he went out to the site without us and more importantly, why he called the Press to report our discovery.  He basically laughed at us and told us it was no big deal and that it was better that an adult reported it as opposed to teenagers, just like that.

We were all so disappointed and really felt betrayed.  We soon found out that the entire area had been quarantined and the French Government had taken control over the Cave and it's contents.  To this day I have never been able to find out any further information on our discovery.  I have read about many other underground hideouts around France and other European cities but not our specific hideout.